


Kiss Me Goodnight (goodbye)

by Sensabo



Series: The Longest Night [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, F/M, Loss, Mention of blood, of sorts...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-09-22
Packaged: 2020-10-12 21:50:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20571464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sensabo/pseuds/Sensabo
Summary: Waking up without her voice wasn’t on the list for today, but neither was Felix losing his body. A horrid way to start the night, truly.[Transistor AU]





	Kiss Me Goodnight (goodbye)

**Author's Note:**

> If no one will feed us I will feed myself.

* * *

“Where.... where is she....” 

Darkness and static. A numbness that fills a hole where _something_ should have been.

“Annette... Annette...”

A voice, painful in its familiarity, peels back the darkness layer by layer only to leave an ache in its wake. She _knows_ that voice, familiar in the way it echoes to every corner of her heart. But that tone... that desperation.... unfamiliar. 

“Damn it.... _**damn it!**_”

A noise, similar to an pitched ringing — the vibrating of metal — pierces the darkness. The sound resonates and the world suddenly snaps into existence; the dull buzz of the street lights and neon signs, the cold asphalt beneath her, the bite of scrapes along her arms and legs, the soreness that takes root down to her very bones — a string of curses in a voice she innately knows like breathing...

_Felix..._

Annette shudders, tries to find the breath and strength to will her limbs to move. To run. Anything, anything... just to rush to his side. Something is wrong. The feeling coils in her gut and snakes its way up like a serpent to her throat to choke the air from her lungs. Arms shaking, vision blurry, it takes her longer than she would like just to push herself off the ground to sit and more cuts yawn open, angry and red against her pale skin for her efforts. 

The ringing ceases for a moment, filled by the sound of Felix gasping — a slew of curses woven in every breath.

Something is wrong, wrong, wrong. 

Silence settles, deafening as she tries to will the world to stop shaking, blurry and formless. Her hands pressed against the ground, fine dirt and rocks clawing at the scrapes on her palms, she struggled to pull her legs under her and stand when she heard him again, voice splintered and cracked like the glass face of a broken pocket watch— 

“_Annette...._”

A knife to the heart would have torn her apart far more gently than his voice, the sound of her name on his lips like_that_. Pain wove through her nerves, a lanced barb right down to the bone as she lurched forward. It didn’t matter, nothing mattered more than finding him, rushing to his side, soothing him — anything, anything he needed so she would never... never hear that tone in his voice again. 

Only vaguely did she register the street lights overhead that lit her path, dim in the darkness of the night, or the way buildings peeled away from the narrow alleyway she burst from and lined like trees along the street. The rubble and tattered remains of once lively buildings jutting like bones from the ground and not a single soul lingered in the area. No one, save a too familiar form slumped against the debris and rubble....

The blood drained from her face, her heart.... 

Felix lay, head bowed and body curled against crumbling stone with a blade lanced through his gut. 

_No...no no no no..._

A soundless scream tore from her throat as she ran, tripped and stumbled to him. The world blurred — from tears, pain, fear ... she could not tell, could not see beyond Felix and the too blue blade that gleamed like a crystal. 

“Annette?”

Her hands flew to his face — too pale, too cold — frantic to brush those dark bangs back. This wasn’t real, could not be real. Whimpers tumbled from her lips, halting and muted as if lost behind static. If she could scream, would it wake him? Would he furrow his brows the way he always did when morning light greeted him and he found it offensive? Would he grumble, half asleep and reach for her, muttering into her skin all the vulnerability he never showed?

“Annette...I...”

She still heard his voice, but his lips never moved. Her hands cradled his face as she pressed her forehead to his, her breath the only warmth that passed between them. Too pale, too cold. No matter where she touched or how fervently she prayed, he never warmed.... never stirred. Blood gleamed and pooled around the blade, too red and too bright against him...wrong, in all the worst ways. 

Felix... Felix...

Red flashed, bold as that ringing sound cut through the night — the blade between her and him vibrated, shuddered where it pinned Felix.

”I’m not **_there_ **anymore!!”

Annette froze, her gaze dropped to the blade, to the red orb that pulsed and glowed like a heartbeat....

”I’m not....”

Felix’s voice, fractured and hoarse but his voice nonetheless, and it came not from the lips whose shape she knew so well — but from what lay between her and him.... 

Shaking fingers dropped from his cold cheek and brushed against the blade, his name a voiceless question upon her breath. 

The red orb in the center of the blade glowed as the sound of a sigh reached her — Felix’s unmistakable sigh that always sounded as if wrenched from his soul. “Finally get it, huh?” 

Silence curled between them, her fingers light upon the flat side of the sword as she traced the patterns that ran like veins down from the red orb. Her other hand lingered upon Felix’s cheek — still too cold to the touch. A dream, a hallucination? Has her mind finally broken from the stress, the sight of finding Felix like this that she conjured up a voice in the weapon that took her from him? Was she really that weak, that pathetic? Had her world always been so.... fragile?

Tears fell freely, blurring her vision and cold upon her skin in the night chill. Cold upon cold upon cold...

”Annette...”

Again his voice, again that soft red light that pulsed in time with his words. 

“It’s....”

His words faded, uncertain, and whatever platitude on the tip of his tongue lodged itself somewhere in the metal and remained unspoken. 

She lifted her hand from the sword — to wipe her tears or gather her breath, or even to return to the ...physical person beside her, she wasn’t sure. His sigh halted her.

“Can you give me a hand?” 

Annette blinked, brows furrowed and the question shaped on her lips. 

“I can’t exactly... move... anymore.” She didn’t have to see his expression to hear the scowl practically seeping from his words. “Can you uh... pull me out?”

Annette felt her heart twist, her hand that had lingered upon his cheek slipped and only found purchase on the fluffed collar of his jacket. Words bubbled up, screamed from her heart but died voiceless as they tumbled from her lips. Only muted whimpers escaped. But the fear, the pain blurred her vision all the same.

Pull? The sword? Out of Felix?

She shook her head vehemently, a glare tinged with tears as she glanced at where sword met skin and the red, red, red that wept from the wound. 

“We can’t stay here. I....”

His voice wavered, woven with a tired sigh. 

“I’m _here_ now, Annette. If you’re worried it will hurt me or something stupid like that, don’t.”

The red glow of the orb softened the quieter his voice became. The same soft tones he spoke whenever he tried to coax her into something she knew would hurt him — much like that time he talked her through stitching up a horrid wound of his in an emergency when help was too far away. The way he always, always buried the pain, eyes closed as he walked her through every step, his fingers clenched tight enough into his palms to leave marks. That same tone, that same Felix...

“You can close your eyes, if that will make it easier. Just don’t....”

_—Don’t leave me like this..._

The words hung, heavy and unspoken in the silence. Annette stole one more glance at Felix’s face — his dark lashes that kissed too pale cheeks, his bangs that swept just right to add a twinge of softness to his features, his lips colorless and cold. Every part of him was cold now. Cold as metal, but unlike the blade beside her, his body never warmed where her hands lingered. Annette leaned in and softly touched her forehead to his — those words she had always smiled into his skin in the mornings now a voiceless whisper between them — before standing on unsteady legs.

A few steps back, enough room to widen her stance, and Felix’s quiet hum of approval drifted from the sword as she wrapped one hand then the other around the grip. 

“Don’t think,” he offered. “Just pull.”

Easy for him to say. 

One deep breath, to steady her hands and her heart that twisted and writhed in her chest. And then she pulled.

The sound alone as the blade slid from his body, the blood and gore that shifted in wake of the empty space. It broke her heart, it shattered what little she had left. Her back foot slipped, whether on blood or debris she had not the strength to determine. She clung to the sword, crying and sobbing with a broken voice that hardly had any sound. The sword cut her, the red of her blood smearing on her arms and dripping to the ground — red, red, red like the stain at blade’s end she had not the courage to look at. 

“Hey, careful...” Felix murmured, his voice soft and soothing in that awkward way of his. “You’re already beat up as is.”

_Jerk._

She sniffed, curled closer to the sword and shivered in the night air. The grip beneath her fingers slowly warmed to her touch and she clung to it like a lifeline. Tonight sucked. Truly, horribly sucked. 

“Annette.” Felix paused, hesitation in his words palpable through the metal. “Your dress is uh... torn. A lot.”

She blinked, a few tears sliding down her cheeks as she stared at the red orb. Her gaze shifted to her arms, glancing over the numerous cuts and blood smears to the tattered remnants of her dress sleeves. A once beautiful white dress with ruffles in just the right places was now more slate grey and ripped in too many areas to count — even the bottom of her dress that used to reach to her shins was so tattered it might as well have been missing beneath the knees. 

“It’s cold.”

Thanks Mister Obvious for the weather report.

”Grab my jacket. I...” He faltered, voice dropping to barely a whisper nearly lost in the night amongst the rubble and ruins of the city. “...I don’t need it anymore.”

Tears fell anew as Annette pressed her forehead to the pommel. Stupid, stupid Felix. She hated this. **Hated** this. Silence stretched, filled with her shuddering, broken sobs and Felix patiently waited. What else could he do? He waited quietly for her to gather enough strength to calm her crying, to sit up and crawl back towards Felix... to his body, dragging the sword behind her. With shaking hands, she leaned the sword against the crumbling stone beside him... his body, and she sat still with her legs tucked under her and hands trembling in her lap for a long, long moment.

Annette could do this, she could... she could— 

A deep breath, her hands shook as she cupped his face in her hands once more. His skin still so cold beneath her fingers. (Felix always hated being cold....) Her fingers tucked stray bangs behind his ear before they dropped to the soft tuff of his jacket collar. If her vision wasn’t so damn blurry, if her heart wasn’t writhing in her throat and choking the very air from her lungs, if her hands weren’t shaking so twice damned badly perhaps this would be easier. Her hands slipped between the collar and his neck, sliding across his shoulders to ease the jacket off as she carefully pulled him towards her and away from the crumbling wall. 

She tried not to think of the blood pooled between them, or the way his head lolled and rested against her shoulder, or the coldness that radiated from his skin and burned through her fingers down to her heart, or the absence of his breath against her skin or the feel of that smirk on his lips whenever he leaned close to her neck. An empty, gaping abyss yawned in her heart where _so many_ things should have been — but weren’t. 

The Felix in her arms remained cold and unresponsive as her hands coaxed the jacket down his arms, and the Felix beside her in metal just as cold as his skin sat silent. 

Tears blurred her vision and Annette wondered if she would ever see clearly again after this night — if there even was a night after this. The jacket fell free to the ground behind him and Annette hesitated to pick it up, the body against her so heavy in her arms. One last sob tore through her as she wrapped her arms tightly around him, one last hug — one last prayer flung to the feet of any god that would listen.

But no god answered—

And she sat, shivering in the night chill with a corpse in her arms and a bloodied sword at her side. She pulled away after a long moment, slowly as she leaned him back against the wall. Trembling hands fixed his hair, cupped his cheek. Annette leaned in, tears in her eyes and heart shattering as she pressed a final kiss to pale, cold lips. 

“We should go,” Felix spoke, the red light from the orb soft as it pulsed. 

Annette slipped his jacket on, the soft tuff tickling her neck. It smelled of him still, but his warmth was long, long gone. One more thing stolen from her, from him. 

The grip of the sword in her hands aggravated the cuts on her palms and she pulled the sword closer. It was too heavy to carry, the tip dragged along the ground but it was the best she could do. She opened her mouth, a voiceless question on her lips when an odd sight caught her attention. 

At her feet the pebbles and rubble danced and jumped, skittering across the ground. A breath later, she felt it — the rumble of something large as the vibrations traveled up the ground, a faint tickling sensation in her bones. 

Felix cursed, the sound harsh and sharp. The red orb flared bright in the night.

The shaking worsened, she could almost feel it rattle her teeth. Her gaze trailed along the ground, where the rubble bounced like sparks from a flame on the ground, to an alleyway on the far side of the street.

”Annette—”

A groan echoed in the night, the sound of metal and machinery that made her skin crawl.

”**Run.**”


End file.
